Few topics are more likely to cause a stir among Christians than universal salvation, or apokatastasis—the view that no person will ultimately experience eternal estrangement from God. Although the universalist view is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the authoritative teaching of most Christian churches, it is not consistently considered heresy on the level of, say, denying the Trinity or the hypostatic union in Christ. But the concept of hell as “eternal conscious torment” has undoubtedly been a part of the Christian theological fabric for centuries, and from the perspective of the broader Church catholic, the burden of proof is probably on any challenger wishing to disrupt that consensus.
“Nursing Fathers”: The Magistrate and the Moral Law
Not many passages in the New Testament speak directly to political order. The first part of the thirteenth chapter of Romans is perhaps the most famous. I would like to focus in this essay on vv. 3-4, which may appear prima facie to be something of an interpretive crux. Are these verses descriptive or prescriptive? That is, are they simply declarative, or are they imperatival, telling us what magistrates ought to do?
The Freedom of a Christian Nation
No effort toward a “Protestant Christendom” will get airborne without the guiding lights of Hookerian nationalism and Althusian federalism.
James Wilson and the Common Sense Theory of the Common Law
When Thomas Paine published Common Sense in 1776, his was not the only commonly held sense of the term “common sense.” Ironically, the term was already complicated at the American founding.
Jesus and Pacifism: A Correspondence (Pt. III)
Part 3 of a 3 part correspondence on Jesus and pacifism from 2017.
Jesus and Pacifism: A Correspondence (Pt. II)
Part 2 of a 3 part correspondence on Jesus and pacifism from 2017.
Jesus and Pacifism: A Correspondence (Pt. I)
Part 1 of 3 from a 2017 correspondence on Jesus and pacifism.
Natural Theology and Protestant Orthodoxy
Is natural theology part of orthodoxy?
“The First Fair Trial”: The Genealogy of the Separation of Church and State
What insight did R.L. Dabney have on the origins of American religious liberty?
John Owen: Prayer as Politics By Other Means
How did a shifting eschatology alter Owen’s view of prayer in politics?